Jobs of staff working at ''non-core'' areas of Solid Energy are on the line as the beleaguered company confirms it has those ''assets'' on the block.

New chairman Mark Ford, appointed to rescue the state-owned coal miner, said today the new board was taking the company back to being a ''pure coal'' operation and selling non-core parts of the company.

Those that would ''suffer'' were in those areas and at head office.

Yesterday the Government revealed the financial crisis of the company whose debt has ballooned to $389 million.

Solid Energy has already shed 450 staff late last year, 25 per cent of its workforce.

Non-core assets include lignite projects in Southland, the hundreds of hectares of farmland it has bought for the lignite underneath, its underground coal gasification technology and its coal seam gas developments.

Asked about job losses he said ''If we go back to a pure coal producing company we need miners, so those skills aren't going to be displaced.

''There may be refinements based on what I call this ''optimisation'' but in the end it's the non-core that will suffer and the overheads, the head office and those sort of people,'' Ford said.

The board is also scrutinising its coal mining operations for savings and Ford was not indicating whether any more miners' jobs could be axed in mining.

In November 220 workers were made redundant at Spring Creek underground mine near Greymouth and about 63 at the underground Huntly East mine in Waikato.

Regarding savings at the mines Ford said they were ''absolutely'' possible.

''We're going to have got to work with the unions. It's got to be collaborative,'' he said.

''All my advisers tell me we can do things better. And that doesn't mean just extending hours and cutting pay, it's technologically better, workplace rotations, better blending (of coal). A whole series of improvements could occur.''

''We have to be very careful. We've got to go through a consultation. Staff are not just commodities you trade, they are real people and I have to look after those people.''

GOVT MUST STAND UP - UNION

Any Government bailout of Solid Energy must not further devastate already struggling mining communities, the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union said.

National secretary Ged O'Connell said the Government was more than happy to take strong dividends from Solid Energy when times were good, and now needed to recognise that the mines were more than a cash-cow.